World Politics Review
By: David Axe
Feb 17, 2010

The last two weeks have seen a mixed message from Beijing regarding U.S.-Chinese military ties. The ambiguous signals are indicative of China’s continuing fixation on Taiwan and its uncertainty regarding its place among world powers.

In January, the U.S. moved forward on a long-delayed, $6.4 billion arms deal for Taiwan that includes assault helicopters, surface-to-air missiles and mine-hunting vessels. The deal had initially been approved by the Bush administration in 2008, but the new administration under President Barack Obama was slow to issue the individual contracts necessary to provide the weapons.

Under the terms of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. is required to provide for the self-defense of the island, which neither China nor the U.S. officially recognizes as an independent country. Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a bloody civil war.

Beijing has vowed to reunite China and Taiwan, by force if necessary. In 1996, the U.S. Navy sailed two aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait in reaction to Chinese threats against the island. Since then, China has spent billions of dollars buying submarines and anti-ship missiles meant to counter American carriers. But Chinese investment has not, as yet, produced a military capable of conquering Taiwan.

Citing the arms deal’s “serious harm and impacts on Sino-U.S. military relations,” Beijing announced it would cancel planned visits between U.S. and Chinese forces. This is China’s standard reaction to any U.S. military cooperation with Taiwan.

But Beijing’s move to sever military ties failed to halt joint U.S.-Chinese security patrols in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. And Beijing said it would allow the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to visit Hong Kong this week.

The mixed message is indicative of China’s internal confusion regarding its place in the world, according to security experts interviewed by World Politics Review. The experts were unanimous in describing Taiwan as Beijing’s overwhelming strategic priority. But they said the Taiwan fixation is complicated by China’s parallel efforts to become an otherwise responsible member of the regional security framework for Asia.     more …

It is in my opinion, that it is imperative that the United States not give in to the bullying tactics of Communist China.   Notice I said “Communist China”?  Let no one forget that Communist China is still one of the most repressive dictatorial governments in the world.

Communist China’s latest bullying tactics are akin to economic war.  Sadly, the United States, my country, put itself in this position because of the lust for more and more low-priced gadgets and toys and larger and larger corporate profits.  All at the loss of hundreds or thousands of American jobs.

The US won a major war over 250 years ago.  The war against England for our independence.  England was then deploying similar tactics against the US.    Thousands of men did not shed their blood then so that now the US could cow-tow to the bullying of Communist China.  We won that war and we’ll win this one.

I understand that major companies may sacrifice great revenues if they are forbidden to sell and do business in Communist China.  In war, we all have to make sacrifices.   The overwhelming lust for revenue and profit should not come at the expense of America’s heritage and national honor.  I also understand the desire for cheap gadgets and electronic toys.  After all, if it weren’t for the low price, most of us wouldn’t own a new flat screen HDTV today.

But I urge my fellow Americans to buckle down and show Communist China that we will not simply bend over to their bullying tactics.  We must show them who truly is the super power in the world.

Over the past 15 years now, I have warned about America becoming too dependent on Communist China. I have warned that one day it would bite us in the ass. Well, I hate to say “I told you so”; but that’s exactly whats happened now.

Before I continue I think a history lesson is in order. In 1911 the Emperor of China was overthrown by a democratic regime. After thousands of years of tyrannical rule by emperors, the people of China finally had a democratic republic. It was known as the “Republic of China” (ROC).

After some years, a group of rag tag communists, led by rebel Mao ZeDong, began to set the stage to overthrow the democratic ROC. To make a long story short, the USA was not in the mood to engage in any more military conflicts after WWII. So it did not intervene to aide the ROC fight off the Communist rebels (we did in Korea, however).

About 1947 the Communist rebels had strengthened in numbers and the tide of the civil war was in their favor. Many of the military and the government of the ROC retreated to an island then named Formosa. From then until 1971, the world recognized Formosa as the seat of government for the ROC and China. Indeed, the ROC was one of the founding members of the United Nations. However, in 1979 the UN voted to recognize The People’s Republic of China (Communist mainland China) as the UN representative of China. Not The ROC. This included the US severing formal diplomatic relations with the ROC in Formosa.

In return for this dirty deed, the US passed a law in Congress known as the Taiwan Relations Act. The act, basically, says that the US will provide Taiwan with weapons and other measures to help defend itself from the mainland, Communist, People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Why do they need to defend themselves from the PRC? Because Communist China has pledged to take Taiwan, against it’s will and by force if necessary. Interestingly enough, the US official policy is that they believe in a “One China”. Presumably, that means a reconciliation of Taiwan and Communist China.

Why on earth would any civilized government want a free and democratic nation to become a part of Communist China? Yet the USA, my government, continues to nudge Taiwan towards that end. Even though our government’s policy is that all people should enjoy a free and democratic government. Their policy certainly smells of hypocrisy. Check out this link which shows more hypocrisy on the part of our government…

China asserts they they own Taiwan. This is as far from the truth as one can get. Taiwan was legally ceded to Japan by the last Emperor of China. When the Japanese surrendered at the end of WWII, the US government appointed the ROC in Taiwan to host the signing of some of the surrender documents and to handle the surrendering Japanese soldiers who occupied Taiwan. Since Taiwan was actually legally owned by the Japanese, there was no disposition of Taiwan then or now. Under international law, the island of Taiwan is actually under the control of the US government. A fact that the US clearly doesn’t advertise nor enforce.

Communist China has over 900 missiles aimed at Taiwan. It has also made it clear that it will take Taiwan by force if necessary. The Taiwan Relations Act does state the following: hat section of the law concludes by saying that the United States will “maintain the capacity … to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan.” Let’s hope when the day comes that the US will keep that promise in the law.

In my opinion, the real reason that the US dropped recognition of the ROC in favor of the PRC was to satisfy US-based, multinational corporations who want to make a killing in China economically. This all happened shortly before Deng Xiaoping, Communist China’s No. 1 man, declared that capitalism was not bad. He met with then president Jimmy Carter in 1979. From that point to today, US multinational companies have closed their manufacturing plants in America with the loss of thousands of American jobs. They also began selling to China in a greed fest of unimaginable proportions. In my opinion, most multinational companies have no allegiance to their homeland. Only to the almighty buck.

So I leave you with the thought that the US government wants the Taiwan quagmire to just go away so they can continue to borrow Billions of dollars from Communist China. The multinational companies also want the problem to go away. So they just want 32 million free and independent Taiwanese quietly join the dictatorial, Communist mainland of China. If it were a Taiwan citizen, would you want that? I think not!

This web site is blocked in China by their state owned Internet firewall. Unlike the people of Communist China, your thoughts and comments are always welcome.